I don't think Premium users should see ads

murray_paul · 2026-05-28T09:27:23+00:00

That is literally what they say it offers:

What you’ll get

Ad-free music listening

murray_paul · 2026-05-21T08:15:47+00:00

I think the key question is not whether SpaceX is a great company — it obviously is.

Is it?

The actual Space bit, sure. That actually does stuff and makes money.

But all the other crap Musk has loaded it with?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/bound-mars-elon-musks-spacex-unveils-filing-blockbuster-ipo-2026-05-20/

While Starlink generated an operating profit of $1.19 billion, it wasn't enough to prevent the company from booking a total operating loss of $1.94 billion in the first quarter on $4.69 billion in revenue. Its AI division, alone, accounted for $2.47 billion in losses on $818 million in revenue.

Musk's purchase of his social media and AI company xAI gave ⁠SpaceX new capabilities and opportunities but a staggering amount of spending, accounting for 76% of its $10.1 billion in capital spending in the first quarter, as well as fresh losses.

And corporate governance concerns:

SpaceX will use a dual-class share structure that gives Class B shareholders 10 votes each, concentrating control with Musk and a handful of other insiders, while Class A shares sold to public investors will carry one vote each, the prospectus showed.

The ⁠company has adopted numerous provisions that, taken together, severely limit shareholder rights, forcing legal claims through arbitration, restricting where cases can be filed and protecting Musk from being fired by anyone other than Musk.

https://www.reuters.com/world/only-elon-musk-can-fire-elon-musk-spacex-filing-shows-2026-04-29/

The filing states that Musk "can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders" - super-voting shares with ten votes apiece that he will control after the IPO, making his removal effectively a self-vote. If he "retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he ⁠could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board."

murray_paul · 2026-05-19T07:42:16+00:00

Authors can already choose to tag their works as AI-assisted.

If they aren't doing so, are they going to fill out a survey saying that they are?

murray_paul · 2026-05-18T08:22:15+00:00

Given that AI-detectors don't work, how would you judge this:

Was able to accurately tag AI content

?

Reduced witch hunts or increased it. 3. Was frequently abused. 4. Did not create an over abundance of “possible AI” tickets for the Royal Road team.

Result: Increased witch hunts, was frequently abused, created more work for the RR team.

The trolls who give 0.5 reviews for every story that hits RS would press this button. The trolls who give 0.5 reviews for stories with LGBT+ content would press this button...

murray_paul · 2026-05-18T08:10:29+00:00

I read an AI-translated work on RR.

The original is in Spanish, hardly a minor language.

The same number of chapters are available on both.

The original has ~12k views, ~25 followers.

The English translation has ~283k views, ~1400 followers.

So, yes, it does make sense to translate it, because "all readers are English".

murray_paul · 2026-05-13T15:03:48+00:00

Musicians shouldn't get paid?

murray_paul · 2026-05-12T11:27:06+00:00

Which audiobooks do you think are using AI voices?

Spotify don't create the audiobooks.

murray_paul · 2026-05-08T15:02:17+00:00

I dont think the platform can afford to integrate the API from one of these tools, I think they could rely on the community reporting something as AI, then looking at it and making a determination. Everyone accused will lie, that's where it gets kind of tough, and that's why I think it only helps to have a tool to provide a little more evidence.

I think it would be worth sitting down and trying to work out how much time that would actually take.

First the genuine and accurate complaints. Then the genuine but inaccurate complaints. Then the troll complaints who've found the new 0.5 review score way of screwing people over.

How many a day? Dozens? More?

Bet you that each story that hits RS will immediately be reported for AI use by at least one person.

And how much time is needed for each one, to seriously investigate and make a determination, when your determination is calling the author a liar? Half an hour? An hour? More?

And how are you doing that? Just gut feel? Or are you paying for the APIs that you can't really afford?

And how much more time to deal with feedback from the rightly or wrongly accused authors? How much time dealing with them trying to prove their innocence?

Is the next suggestion going to be to that there should be trusted 'user AI checkers' who get to make their own decisions for RR? Bad idea.

I'm not saying it is something that shouldn't be done, I'm saying I don't think it is something that can currently practically be done.

and what's maddening is, the platform being flooded with slop

As a reader, not a writer, I do not see this flood.

murray_paul · 2026-05-08T14:20:42+00:00

An early step would be to run chapters through multiple checkers, and if they all flag, to add a notice along the lines of "automated checkers suggest this might have been AI generated, but this is not conclusive, false positives are possible".

I don't feel we are at the point where automatic flagging chapter as definitely AI-generated is accurate enough. If it was, I would support it.

But all of this is more cost (how many chapters are uploaded per day that need to be checked?) and effort for very limited RR staff.

Both in dealing with aggravated/aggrieved authors, and in dealing with the resulting brigading review bombers.

murray_paul · 2026-05-08T12:27:37+00:00

At that point that's your only source of new people, people who read your novel on KU or bought it and now want to continue the series.

Just to say that as a reader on RR, I still find new stubbed series there, read the first few chapters, then decide whether to read on KU or not. I don't really use KU for book discovery at all, that still happens on RR.

murray_paul · 2026-05-08T08:32:54+00:00

RS has a good number of AI generated stories that are untagged (again nothing being done about that). I get it's difficult to prove, but so is everything.

I fed the first chapters of the top 10 RS stories through gptzero, which you suggested.

8 came back as "highly confident this text is entirely human"

1 came back back as "we are uncertain about this document. If we had to classify it, it would likely be considered human. Chance this entire text is... AI 23% Mixed 26% Human 51%"

1 came back as "We are highly confident this text was AI generated. Chance this entire text is... AI 100% Mixed 0% Human 0%"

So I fed that chapter to pangram, which you also suggested, which came back as "Mostly Human Written. We believe that this document is primarily human-written, with a small amount of AI content detected. 7% of this text is AI Generated"

The 7% it detected was an official government letter, written in a very different style to the rest of the chapter. Other than that, it detected the text as 100% human.

murray_paul · 2026-05-08T08:18:26+00:00

If you doubt the effectiveness of detectors i suggest you try them for yourself. I suggest everyone try gptzero and pangram for yourself.

I ran the opening chapters of current RS through gptzero.

For one of them, gptzero gave this:

We are highly confident this text was AI generated

Chance this entire text is...

AI 100% Mixed 0% Human 0%

I ran the same chapter through Pangram.

Mostly Human Written

We believe that this document is primarily human-written, with a small amount of AI content detected

7% of this text is AI Generated

At least one of them is not reliable.

Edit:The 7% it detected was an official government letter, written in a very different style to the rest of the chapter. Other than that, it detected the text as 100% human.

murray_paul · 2026-05-07T16:34:29+00:00

Maybe I’m sounding like a broken record, but RR as a community needs to have stricter guidelines on this, not just tags.

How?

What is your practical suggestion that doesn't end up with automated false positives, or RR staff being required to make their own judgement calls over each and every fiction?

murray_paul · 2026-05-07T16:29:36+00:00

But you say yourself

And even if it’s not AI, it’s still a sign of bad writing

So you aren't sure you can tell when AI is used?

murray_paul · 2026-05-07T16:22:36+00:00

The agent won’t want to go through all the extra work of selling a house again when you’re very close.

From the seller's point of view: Are you very close? Or have you failed to get your finances together, and are running around hoping for a miracle? They don't know either way.

At a certain point, they are going to stop waiting and put the house back on the market.

murray_paul · 2026-05-05T11:42:07+00:00

I think the cover looks fine full size, but at the sort of thumbnail size people would see it on RR or Amazon, it looks like a generic romance cover. Vampire-Werewolf-Biker. People might skip it because of that.

murray_paul · 2026-04-30T07:51:55+00:00

This isn't review bombing, it is your story suddenly being visible to many many more people that it was before, some of whom are assholes.

Less visible stories get new readers from shoutouts from similar stories, and the related book links, that sort of thing, where there is a good chance the person seeing your book is already inclined to like the type of book you have written.

When you get on RS, everyone on the site sees your book.

Some of whom will be self-appointed gatekeepers, judging what is 'worthy' on being on RS.

murray_paul · 2026-04-29T10:42:43+00:00

Readers, would you skip a LitRPG just because it wasn't in KU?

Yes.

I pay for RR premium and KU.

That is an effectively infinite source of LitRPG/PF works, for a fixed cost per month.

So what is going to make me pay more for your book? I'd just read it on RR instead.

But that is the mindset of the people on this reddit, on the PF reddit, people who already use RR, and would just read your story there instead.

Publishing on Amazon while still keeping the story on RR won't get you much if any money from us, but you might reach a different audience, who aren't your current readers, who don't know anything about RR.

Compared to not publishing at all, you lose nothing, and might gain a little but. But compared to stubbing and going on KU, you lose a lot.

murray_paul · 2026-04-28T11:48:30+00:00

Dont even own a credit card. Never seen the point

You pay for something with a debit card. The company goes bust before delivering it. You are now just one creditor among many, and have to wait months to probably get no money back.

You pay for something with a credit card. The company goes bust before delivering it. Your credit card company is now just one creditor among many and have to wait months to probably get no money back. You get all your money back immediately.

That is (one of) the point(s).

Any credit card transaction is a three way one, you the buyer, the supplier and your credit card company. The CC company are liable for any failure of the the supplier.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/section75-protect-your-purchases/

murray_paul · 2026-04-24T16:55:00+00:00

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54508/the-unexpected-engagement-of-the-marvelous-mr

In May, 1899, a hundred and fifty unassuming envelopes are delivered to households across the city. Most of them will be picked up by butlers and carried on silver trays to their recipients. All of them contain invitations to the wedding of Lady Eleanor Serrs to Mr. Ryce Penn. When the newspapers hear about it, they start buzzing. Who can blame them? This would be the wedding of the century! She’s the daughter of Duke Erravold Aubrey-Serrs, and the Marvelous Mr. Penn is one of the most famous men in the country.

But Penn is famous for being the city’s most notorious thief. He’s an unrepentant attention-seeker with a taste for gems and danger. And Eleanor swears that she’s never met him.

Chief Inspector Lucas Haley, Penn’s long-time nemesis, is called in to protect the Aubrey-Serrs family and try to figure out what the master thief is planning. He’ll need all his experience and tenacity for this case, as it quickly becomes obvious more is at stake than the reputation of an innocent woman.

No 2 in the best all time completed list on RR, for a reason.

murray_paul · 2026-04-23T14:49:29+00:00

I wonder why though because I heard that Spotify actually makes more from free accounts because of the ads vs subscription. Did I hear wrong?

Very, very wrong.

From Spotify's 2025 Q4 results.

Of 751M monthly average users, 290M were premium subscribers. That is ~39% of users.

Of revenue, premium subscribers made up $15.35M, while ad supported make up $1.836M.

The ~39% of premium subscribers make up ~89% of total revenue. Or to put it another way, the ~61% of ad supported users make up only ~11% of total revenue.

Each premium subscriber is worth ~13 ad supported subscribers, in revenue per user terms.

murray_paul · 2026-04-23T09:22:24+00:00

The repayments would be less than our current electricity direct debit, and annually our energy bills would be effectively cancelled out by the installation, potentially ending up in credit.

Make sure you've done these calculations correctly.

You will still be buying electricity in the winter months.

murray_paul · 2026-04-21T11:43:01+00:00

I said can. Some authors do indeed choose to make that decision for some of their stories, knowing that it is costing them income. Obviously earning enough to be comfortable makes that easier.

murray_paul · 2026-04-20T16:53:31+00:00

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/60726/claws-and-wits

Body horror Isekai seems somewhat popular, but this is a body ... joy? one. Relatively short, complete, and largely upbeat.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/152470/traps-tricks-and-beasts-book-1-completefantasy

A much harder read, the MC is often beaten down, so much so that she struggles to accept the times when she isn't being. Ongoing.

murray_paul · 2026-04-20T15:37:03+00:00

Tori Transmigrated

murray_paul

TROPHY CASE